The Way Things Were By Anne Weaver

ABOUT THE WEEK OF JULY 10, 1964, because of numerous destructive fires and the "highly inflammable conditions" of forests, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had sharply restricted, by proclamation, any smoking or setting of fires in 11 upstate counties. Hamilton County was among them.

The governor's proclamation canceled all fire permits in the affected area and prohibited the starting of fires on either publicly or privately owned land, except when confined in completely enclosed incinerators at continuously monitored municipal dumps; in fireplaces at continuously supervised public or private campsites, parks, picnic areas and other recreation areas; or in fireplaces at state maintained lean-tos or open camps, or in private fireplaces or outdoor cooking apparatus when used in conjunction with the occupancy of a dwelling or camp.

The order also prohibited smoking of tobacco in the forests, woodlands and open lands, except at continuously supervised public or private campsites, parks, picnic areas and other recreation areas.

At INLET, campers at Bald Mountain Colony near Old Forge awoke to Mother Nature's own fireworks July 4, 1964. A mother bear and her two cubs joined the tenters on Third Lake in the wee hours of Saturday morning, setting up their headquarters in a tree.

The noise awoke campers who turned on flashlights, frightening the mother bear away. The treed cubs refused to descend to join their mother in flight, and the resulting noise aroused the entire population of the tent and trailer resort.

Dick Barrett, owner of Bald Mountain Colony, phoned Game Warden Frank Lamphear of Raquette Lake, who in turned notified the Conservation Department offices. Two men were dispatched from Albany to capture and tag the cubs and they were then released on nearby state forestlands in the hope they would find or be found by their mother.

The entire episode was witnessed by about 100 people, a few of whom jokingly asked Barrett what was next on his weekend program.

The Town of Webb and the Central Adirondack Association would sponsor a day of boat races at First Lake, sanctioned by the American Power Boat Association.

The Rev. Ralph Carmichael, priest-in-charge of the Church of the Transfiguration, Blue Mountain Lake, would be spending a sabbatical year in Europe studying at Oxford. The Rev. Richard H. Frye, rector of St. James Church, Oneonta, would be officiating rector for July.

He was a graduate of Hobart College and Berkeley Divinity School in New Haven and was ordained in 1953. He had been in the Department of College Work in the Albany Dioicese.

Serving the church in August would be the Rev. Stephen C. Walke, who was rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Hegerstamn, Md. He was graduated from Yale in 1934 and the Virginia Seminary in 1939 and was ordained in that year. He married Mary Brown-Serman, whose father and grandfather were rectors for many years of the Church of the Good Shepherd on St. Hubert's Island in Raquette Lake.

Both the summer rectors would reside on the island. The Rev. Walke was rector of Christ Church, Raleigh, N.C., and had served on the Leadership Division of the Department of Christian Education of the National Council and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of North Carolina.

Dr. Stephen E. Palmer of 4th Lake had been invited to speak at the Inlet Community Center (formerly Arrowhead Hotel) and show pictures in color of some of the Iron Curtain countries. Doctor and Mrs. Palmer had spent seven months in Eastern Europe and the Middle East the previous winter and spring.

The Palmers traveled independently, driving 15,000 miles, mostly on the "back roads" where they could talk with the people apart from secret police. By an odd circumstance they were in Dresden and Leipzig in East Germany, where visitors were seldom allowed.

Their way took them through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and on to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. In Israel they visited their older son, Stephen Jr., and his family.

The members of the S.S. Peter and Paul Church, Hamburg, were guests at the Wood Hotel, Inlet, over the Fourth of July weekend. They had been invited by the Rev. Francis Edic, pastor of St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church, Inlet.

The Ordinary of the Mass was the Mass of St. Andrew by L. Powell; the offertory motet "Cantate Domino" by Giuseppe Pitoni, the Communion hymn "Laudate Dominum" by Marc-Antoine Charpentier; the recessional "Full of Glory, Full of Wonders" by N.A. Montani.